1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document-management device and a document-management method which are adapted for supporting the task of electronizing paper documents and registering electronic data of the documents to an existing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
While the electronization of documents in offices and the sharing of electronic document data are penetrating, the registration of electronic data of documents for meetings or the like in conference management systems or the like as the attached copies is commonly performed.
The electronic document data created by a personal computer or acquired in the form of electronic data may be easily registered in the conference management systems. However, in the case of paper documents the data of which is only described on paper, they must be electronized with a scanner manually before registering them in the conference management systems.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional procedure of electronization and registering of paper documents to an existing system.
As shown in FIG. 1, the user scans and electronizes paper documents D, which are to be registered to an existing system 1, such as a conference management system, by using a multi-function peripheral 4 having the functions of a scanner and a printer (step S1). And the user carries out an e-mail distribution (scan to mail) from the multi-function peripheral 4 to the user or a folder distribution (scan to folder) from the multi-function peripheral 4 to a predetermined folder of the user (step S2).
Subsequently, the user checks the e-mail addressed to the user, or the electronic data of the paper documents D transmitted to the predetermined folder, on the client 2 which is operated by the user. After this, the user accesses the existing system 1 and manually registers the electronic data of the paper documents D in the screen of the corresponding conference of the existing system 1 (step S3).
FIG. 2, FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 show examples of user interfaces of the electronic data registration to the existing system 1. Suppose that the screen of the registration site is displayed on the personal computer as in FIG. 2 through FIG. 4. In the example of FIG. 2, if the attached file button 11 is clicked with the mouse, the electronic data is attached to the e-mail. In the example of FIG. 3, the search button and the add button indicated in the area 12 are displayed, and if the search button is clicked to specify the file and the add button is clicked, the electronic data is attached to the e-mail. In the example of FIG. 4, the condition in which the electronic data of the “planning.tif” file is attached to the e-mail is displayed in the area 13.
As described above, when the paper documents are electronized and registered to the existing system, the conventional method requires that the electronic data of the paper documents scanned be manually registered in the existing system, and there is a problem that the handling becomes complicated.
In the meantime, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications No. 11-119597 and No. 2004-343564 disclose a document-management method in which a bar code is assigned to a portion of a document being copied by a copying device or being transmitted by a facsimile device, and the setting of copy conditions or fax transmission destination by the user is easily carried out by reading the content of the bar code assigned.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2004-303223 discloses a document-management method by which a bar code printed in a document is extracted.
However, neither of the above-mentioned document-management methods supports the task of electronizing paper documents and registering the electronic data of the documents to the existing system. Thus, it is difficult for the above-mentioned document-management methods to eliminate or solve the above-mentioned problem.